Quotes and Poems About Grieving

Quotes:

"Grief is the price we pay for love." - Queen Elizabeth II

"The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not 'get over' the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be nor would you want to be." - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler   

"What is lovely never dies, but passes into another loveliness, star-dust or sea-foam, flower or winged air." - Thomas Bailey Aldrich  

"Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place." - Sarah Dessen, Keeping the Moon

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die." - Thomas Campbell

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart." - Helen Keller (Often resonates deeply with those grieving the intangible loss of a loved one)  

"Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them." - George Eliot

"Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower, we will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind." - William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality  

Poems and Excerpts:

"Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain." - Mary Elizabeth Frye, Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep   

"Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy." - Unknown (Often attributed incorrectly, but the sentiment is powerful)  

"When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." - Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet   

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love." - Washington Irving   

"And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed." - Maya Angelou, When Great Trees Fall   

"I measure every Grief I meet with narrow, probing, Eyes - I wonder if It weighs like Mine - and if It sits as close -" - Emily Dickinson, I measure every Grief I meet

"The pain passes, but the beauty remains." - Pierre Auguste Renoir (While not specifically about grief, it speaks to the enduring beauty of what was, even after the pain of loss.)

These words offer a range of emotions and perspectives on the complex experience of grieving. May they offer some comfort or resonance.